San Francisco Treats

I was in San Francisco this past weekend to help judge the Scharffen Berger Chocolate Adventure Contest. A day of eating sandwich cookie entries using Scharffen Berger chocolate and one of ten adventure ingredients. So much fun and so many cookies. Plus the winner is going to get twenty five thousand dollars. Hello. That’s a ton of sweet cookie dough. The winner will be announced in a few weeks. If you didn’t enter this time, I hope you will next year.

Now, I knew I would be eating a bunch of cookies on Sunday during the judging, but when I travel I like to try treats from sweet shops and such in the places I visit. Do you have this affliction, too? I mean I rarely go to bakeries at home, but when I hit the road … that’s another story. And on Saturday I almost overdosed on sweets. Have you ever been to the Ferry Building in San Francisco? Oh my gosh, such a fun place and so many amazing vendors and shops.

First stop was Ciao Bella Gelato. If I only ate one sweet when traveling it would definitely be ice cream. Ice cream. Ice cream. Ice cream. Or Gelato. Not sorbet though. Creamy yes. Icy no.

But in the case of the Ferry Building, they have so much more than just creamy treats to taste.

And once I started, I couldn’t stop.

This is slightly embarassing, but we’re all friends here.

Scharffen Berger had a little spot, so I grabbed a warm up for Sunday’s festivities with this dark chocolate sea salt bark.

El Porteño – I. Love. Their. Empanandas. Prosciutto and fontina cheese is by far my favorite. I first had them two years ago and oh man I was so happy they were still set up in the Ferry Building. Can’t get enough of these things.

(P.S. All the bagged cookies and caramels were for friends … minus the bag of cookies I am eating right now as I type this. Those chocolate sables are hard to resist.)

This chocolate macaron was my favorite sweet on Saturday…

… until I tried this Miette’s Mini Scharffen Berger cake on Monday. Oh My Gosh. So good and still moist after a couple of days. Look at that ganache. Often chocolate cake desserts don’t live up to how good they look, but this petite domed cake was just as incredible as it was beautiful. I’d definitely get this again.

So that’s a little tour of my treats from this weekend at the Ferry Building.

Schoggi is a beautiful shop with a stunning display of swiss chocolates. Plus they offer petite pastries and macarons, too. It was extremely difficult narrowing down my choices. They are all like pieces of art.

106 comments on “San Francisco Treats”

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I just stumbled upon your blog trying to find a good recipe for my school’s goodie day and found this post. I immediately recognized the Ferry building as my husband and I just got back from a trip to San Francisco. We had a blast! I just finished blogging all about our trip. We had the same macaroons and they were to die for! We ate the vanilla and hazelnut. YUM! We didn’t do a whole lot of dessert places but next time you are in town you have to hit up Mama’s Breakfast and Pat’s Cafe. They both made some amazing yet very different banana pancakes. Mama’s had a lot of yummy looking breads but we also got the French Toast at Pat’s and it was also delish!! Some great food in that town. :) So glad I stumbled upon your blog. Look forward to reading some more. :)

I actually work at Kara’s! Is that picture old? I’ve never met those people before hahah.

But you definitely have to try the white pistachio milkshake at Gott’s in the ferry building next time! I tried it for the first time ever a few days ago and wondered how I’ve lived so long without it.